The Tech Lead will design and deliver AI-enabled products, implement scalable architectures, define technical direction, and collaborate with stakeholders to translate business needs into technical solutions.
This is a remote position.
We are looking for a highly capable Tech Lead to design and deliver an AI-enabled product from scratch in an environment where requirements may initially be unclear or incomplete.
This role requires someone who combines strong software engineering fundamentals, product thinking, and hands-on experience building systems powered by LLMs or other AI technologies.
The ideal candidate is comfortable operating in a small company environment, working directly with stakeholders to transform ambiguous business needs into scalable technical solutions.
This is a highly hands-on role requiring strong autonomy, pragmatic decision-making, and the ability to structure messy problem spaces.
This role requires someone who combines strong software engineering fundamentals, product thinking, and hands-on experience building systems powered by LLMs or other AI technologies.
The ideal candidate is comfortable operating in a small company environment, working directly with stakeholders to transform ambiguous business needs into scalable technical solutions.
This is a highly hands-on role requiring strong autonomy, pragmatic decision-making, and the ability to structure messy problem spaces.
Job Activities
- Design and implement scalable architectures for AI-enabled products, including LLM integrations, structured workflows (e.g., classification, extraction, reasoning), and RAG or embedding-based solutions.
- Define technical direction and make pragmatic technology decisions, balancing speed, quality, cost, and reliability, while ensuring maintainability and strong engineering standards.
- Evaluate and improve AI system performance through structured feedback loops, guardrails, and fallback strategies.
- Collaborate closely with stakeholders to translate ambiguous business needs into clear technical solutions, influencing product roadmap and prioritization.
- Own delivery by breaking down complex initiatives, coordinating team efforts, and ensuring timely execution of key milestones.
- Lead by example through hands-on development, code reviews, and mentorship, fostering a high-quality and scalable engineering culture.
- Continuously improve processes, documentation, and development workflows to support team efficiency and growth.
Requirements
- Strong experience as a Tech Lead or Senior Engineer, with the ability to design scalable systems from scratch across modern web architectures (frontend and backend).
- Solid expertise in API design, database modeling, software architecture patterns, and scalability fundamentals.
- Hands-on experience integrating LLM APIs into production systems, with a strong understanding of prompting strategies, structured AI workflows, and concepts such as RAG, embeddings, semantic search, and tool/function calling.
- Ability to evaluate and optimize trade-offs between model performance, cost, and latency, while ensuring reliability through guardrails and structured output strategies.
- Strong product and problem-solving mindset, with the ability to identify gaps, structure ambiguous problems, and make decisions with incomplete information.
- Excellent communication skills, able to simplify complex technical concepts and effectively align with non-technical stakeholders, including negotiating scope and priorities.
Nice to Have
- Experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot) and proven ability to increase development velocity using AI.
- Experience in early-stage startups or small teams, including launching v1 products and improving undefined or unstructured processes.
- Experience working closely with founders or executive stakeholders.
Similar Jobs
Artificial Intelligence • Big Data • Cloud • Information Technology • Machine Learning • Software
Provide pre-sales technical support for Federal Civilian sales: lead discovery, demos, POC/POV, technical validation, RFIs/RFPs, and stakeholder engagement to achieve sales wins and illustrate Nexthink value across IT security, operations, and service management.
Top Skills:
AIEnd User ComputingGrcIt SecurityItsmNexthinkSpark
Fintech • HR Tech
Lead design and build of scalable, resilient backend systems for Gusto Money products. Own projects end-to-end, adopt AI tooling, collaborate cross-functionally, and mentor engineers while driving product development from concept to launch.
Manufacturing
Lead and administer the cloud data warehouse platform (roles/permissions, performance, security, cost governance). Design scalable, secure data architectures and models. Develop and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines, SQL and Python code, dbt transformations, CI/CD, and version control workflows. Migrate/load data from APIs, SaaS, and ERP systems, monitor platform performance and costs, and use Unix command-line and ETL/relational database tools.
Top Skills:
Amazon RedshiftAPIsCi/CdDbtEtl ToolsGitGoogle BigqueryOraclePythonSaaSSAPSnowflakeSQLUnix Command-Line
What you need to know about the Chicago Tech Scene
With vibrant neighborhoods, great food and more affordable housing than either coast, Chicago might be the most liveable major tech hub. It is the birthplace of modern commodities and futures trading, a national hub for logistics and commerce, and home to the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. This diverse blend of industry influences has helped Chicago emerge as a major player in verticals like fintech, biotechnology, legal tech, e-commerce and logistics technology. It’s also a major hiring center for tech companies on both coasts.
Key Facts About Chicago Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 245,800; 5.2% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: McDonald’s, John Deere, Boeing, Morningstar
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, fintech, software, logistics technology
- Funding Landscape: $2.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Arch Venture Partners, MATH Venture Partners, Jump Capital, Hyde Park Venture Partners
- Research Centers and Universities: Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Institute of Technology, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory



